Baking

Every now and then I get a hankering for high tea. I love how fancy everything is, from the elegant set up to the finger sandwiches to the tasteful little desserts. Oh and let’s not forget about the tea. Unfortunately most places charge an exorbitant amount for high tea so I figured why not host my own high tea party instead.

Preparing for this was fun and easy. Everything was homemade except for the quiches, the triangles, and the lemon tarts (which I put together using store bought tart shells and lemon curd from a jar). My guests were super impressed and we all ate until we could no longer move. (I kept refilling the tiers and eventually gave everyone some food to take home as there was so much leftover). This was definitely a great experience and is something anyone can do.

1/2 cup sugar (I used brown sugar so that the muffins would be more moist)

3 tsp baking powder

zest of one lemon

1 cup blueberries

1 large egg

1 cup milk

1/4 cup corn, vegetable or canola oil

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200°C

2. In a large bowl combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, salt and lemon zest. Gently stir in the blueberries

3. In another bowl whisk together the egg, milk and oil

4. Combine the wet and dry ingredients and stir just until the ingredients are combined (over mixing will result in tough muffins)

5. Spoon mixture into a greased muffin tray and bake for 20 minutes (or until cooked through when tested with a skewer)

Overall:

These muffins were like nothing I had ever tasted before. The crunchy texture and subtle corn flavour combined with the blueberries and fresh lemon zest resulted in lovely muffins that are great to snack on.

I’ve had a cookie craving for the past week now and finally found some time today to make these. These sweet crumbly cookies have a distinctive cinnamon taste and I feel that one teaspoon of cinnamon instead of two is plenty enough. (Note that I didn’t use a piping bag, hence the uneven crosses.)

It all started with the fact that I had never been to “that place in Sorrento” that makes the famous Sorrento vanilla slice. After a quick Google search I discovered that the place was called Just Fine Food. So one sunny afternoon I took a little road trip down to Sorrento to see what all the fuss was about.

Just Fine Food

23 Ocean Rd, Sorrento 5984 4666

There was an ample amount of creamy yet lumpy vanilla custard that was mildly sweet. Although I found the pastry to be quite thin and ordinary, I did like the layer of jam that came at the bottom of the slice.

I finished off this vanilla slice thinking to myself that like the name of the place, it was just fine. It got me thinking that there had to be places that were closer to home that made fantastic vanilla slice. So I decided to go to Aviv Cakes and Bagels, as a friend of mine had once told me that the vanilla slice there was simply amazing.

Aviv Cakes and Bagels

412 Glenhuntly Road, Elsternwick 9528 6627

The vanilla custard was smooth and moderately sweet, while the pastry was delicious: thick, crispy and almost biscuit-like. As a whole, I really enjoyed the sweet to creamy ratio of this particular vanilla slice.

I also had to make a stop at The French Lettuce as they have this sign in front of the place:

The French Lettuce Patisserie and Bakery

237 Nicholson St, Carlton 9347 7311

The mildly sweet custard filling was light and extremely creamy, while the pastry was thick, flaky and buttery. The vanilla slice here also came with a side of strawberry jam which was perfect for breaking up the creaminess and for providing some contrasting flavour.

I also attempted to make my very own vanilla slice. I found this recipe from Best Recipes except instead of making up the icing, I dusted my vanilla slice with icing sugar.

Notice how yellow my custard filling turned out? That’s because I added less cream than what the recipe required (not intentionally, but because I was out of cream and couldn’t be bothered going out to buy more). Also, notice all the little lumps in the filling? Turns out that you should probably sift the custard powder before you mix it with everything otherwise you will end up with lumps that are impossible to get rid of!

Overall:

This was a fun little quest and in the end the best vanilla slice for me personally was from Aviv Cakes and Bagels. The pastry was fantastic and the filling was very scrumptious as it had the perfect balance between creamy and sweet.

I had leftover white chocolate and raspberries from the muffins that I made a few days ago, so decided to make these and replace the chocolate chips in the recipe with raspberries instead. The result: brownies were fruity, slightly crumbly, deliciously rich, and very addictive!